Hydraglass
we know that making the trip there will yield success and we'll come home with what we need
Maybe for basic things but as someone who's done a few renovations over the years, I find better success with other locations for more complicated pieces of hardware, like plumbing parts. That and Home Depot doesn't have the staff who actually knows the products they're selling, if you can even find one. I once met a millennial who knew a lot about tools at Canadian Tire and it blew me away, not since the 80s have I seen anyone at any age at Canadian Tire who knew anything about anything.
The big stores are a known supplier of a given product and we know that making the trip there will yield success
I feel this is a mistake a lot of people make that leads to the demise of mom and pop stores.
We used to have a Home Hardware in Niagara Falls that while it wasn't exactly outside of the realm of chains, it was run by a family and didn't have a big box store feel, and the people there knew where all the stock was, would take you to the stock, and would order you what they didn't have. They had plenty of loyal diehard boomer customers but the young people would rather drive to all the different Home Depot, Rona, and Lowe's stores to try to find what they needed and then try to order it online if they couldn't find it. For some reason nobody ever thinks of anything but the big box stores. If Home Depot doesn't have something, i guess the only option is going online kind of mentality.
I believe the only family run hardware store we had / have was Bickles but it was sold to someone around 20 years ago after the old man died, but it's still around today, somehow the new owners managed to keep going despite all the big box hardware stores in the area.
you've got the receipt and the item, they'll take it back regardless what the problem, no questions no hassles, the policies are clear and work every time and aren't at the whim of whoever is in the store at the time.
I can't say that this is true, I've had issues returning things to both Home Depot and Walmart and those issues were entirely due to the whims of whoever was at the store at the time. I went back in both instances at a later time and dealt with someone else and had no issues. The only store I can think of with a no-hassle return policy is Costco but we also pay extra for that with a membership fee. Amazon too, but same deal, we pay for that experience.
(Target) did NOT have in store what we were expecting when we went in.
100%. Not only did this happen to me, where I went into the store to buy two things advertised as being on sale that I couldn't find, upon trying to find someone to help me find it I was told it wasn't their job (St. Catharines store). I heard other stories of the same thing. It wasn't just missing products and rude staff, it's that the products were so dishevelled, like a stock boy put stuff on shelves in random places with no sense of order. Pots and pans are in one spot but also intermixed with other products in another spot.
The funny thing is, the American Target was never like that. I've been to a number of them over the years and they feel like a slightly nicer version of Walmart. The Canadian stores felt like they were run by a kid who never cleans his messy room, they were like a chaotic version of Zellars.
The thought of "oh lets go to some local appliance stores and see what sort of blenders are around?" isn't something the vast majority of people are going to do here.
Yea and it's unfortunate because a lot of people are missing out. Something like 15 years ago my nephew needed a washer and dryer so we went to a local family run appliance store and I said to the owner, "I don't want him to get anything with any of this new fangled technologies or bluetooth crap, I want a good quality washer and dryer with classic dials and buttons." "No problem! I just put one of these washers and this dryer over here at my daughter's new place and they'll never let you down". 15 years later and they still work great. You had a guy who knew the equipment he was selling because they also repair it, entirely unlike what you find at The Brick or related stores.
It's sad because I feel like a lot of people will never have that experience, they'll never know what it's like to have a loyal relationship with a vendor who likes to take care of them.
